


Lace

by indirectkissesiniceland



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Crying, Gen, hand-holding, that's it that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 03:58:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5402216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indirectkissesiniceland/pseuds/indirectkissesiniceland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaneki hated being touched. Even if it were a high-five from a classmate during gym class or an accidental bumping into another person on the train, there was something about it that lingered on his skin hours later. With Hide it was different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lace

Kaneki hated being touched. Even if it were a high-five from a classmate during gym class or an accidental bumping into another person on the train, there was something about it that lingered on his skin hours later. Callouses, sweaty palms, the foreign sinews of another person’s limbs—he couldn’t help the uncomfortable shiver that accompanied those seconds of physical contact.

 

Once as a kid, he’d been swept up in a classroom game of Red Rover. On his left side, he had a boy who held his hand in a death grip, squishing his fingers on top of one another so he couldn’t even flex his hand without scratching himself with his own nails; and on his right, a girl twining her fingers through his and leaving streaks of sweat the way a slug left a residue of slime on its pilgrimage over a leaf. It was a relief when the person his team asked to send over ran through Kaneki, giving him reprieve from unwanted hands. The other team quickly realized he was the weak link and broke through him again and again, and even though his teammates glared at him, Kaneki still basked in the relief of a puffy winter coat’s force freeing his twitching hands.

 

He always washed his hands twice. Twice after he went to the bathroom, twice before and after he ate, and twice anytime somebody touched him. Sometimes even three times. Sawing his hands back and forth under the faucet until the running water warmed, pumping soap and lathering, letting the water heat up a little too much, his hands reflexively trying to escape it. Hot water would remove any trace. He wouldn’t feel the ghosts of fingerprints pressing their whorls and loops into him.

 

With Hide it was different. Without Kaneki ever saying so, Hide knew he didn’t like being touched. He couldn’t always help it, wrapping an arm around his shoulders or tackling him with excitement when he returned to school after being sick, but he always apologized for it.

 

“It’s okay,” Kaneki assured him, and it was true. He didn’t pull away from Hide the way he did everyone else.

 

Maybe it was because Hide didn’t hurt. His high-fives never left Kaneki’s palms stinging, his grip never squashed Kaneki’s fingers into a bony, uncomfortable mess. Even Hide’s tackles were cushioned by Kaneki’s backpack and at worst threw him off balance until Hide spun him around and grounded him again. Hide’s hands didn’t know how to resent him.

 

Kaneki wasn’t sure how to ask for touch. Sitting in the library studying for exams, surrounded by all that quiet, and watching Hide tap against the desk with his pencil the way a drummer keeps the beat with his drumsticks. It was hard to explain envying a pencil, and even harder to explain disappointment when Hide moved his metronome to the back of Kaneki’s hand to soften the sound after multiple glares from the librarian. That little eraser just made his hand feel colder.

 

The funeral was so small, just Kaneki, his aunt and her family, and Hide. Kaneki’s aunt insisted they not dawdle at the funeral parlor. Hide promised to walk home with Kaneki so he could stay a little longer. The two of them sat on the front steps into the parlour in silence for almost an hour, the temperature dropping with the sun. Hide didn’t say anything while Kaneki cried into his hands. Every once in a while Hide would pass over new tissues, and he’d take the old ones, too, and stuff them in his pockets. Kaneki wanted to blubber that was gross, but he couldn’t make out the words.

 

At some point, the snot and achy gasps for breath slowed down, and Kaneki was left with the quieter, watery tears, the kind no amount of blinking could hold back because the tears were just so wet. There weren’t even sniffles to go with them, only the low whine that was the wink to watery tears’ smile. Kaneki could see why “with some tears and a whine” wouldn’t catch on the way “with a wink and a smile” did, though. He pondered the number of times he’d seen that phrase in older books translated from English, then he thought that a good child wouldn’t be thinking about books after coming out of his mother’s funeral. So he sat with his hands by his sides and watched the world swim in his vision.

 

Hide covered his hand with his own, as gentle as fluffing a blanket over him. Kaneki was instantly warmer, turning his hand over so that when Hide squeezed he could squeeze back. Hide’s fingers curved in the plane between Kaneki’s thumb and index finger, as if they were wearing mittens. After a few minutes, he shifted his hand so that it lined up with Kaneki’s, and interlaced their fingers. Kaneki curled his fingers over Hide’s knuckles immediately, clamping his hand in place, making him an anchor. He soon felt the pads of Hide’s fingertips ghosting over his knuckles as well.

 

“You’re my best friend,” Hide said, breaking the long silence. “And I’m really sorry.”

 

It wasn’t until he was much older, alone in his apartment, his cheek irritated from the edge of the unfamiliar eyepatch up against it, that Kaneki recalled the moment and wondered if Hide had been apologizing for something else.


End file.
